Mike Bedford

I. IntroductionPoultry diets are currently formulated based on total calcium (Ca) and available phosphorus, with a ratio of 2:1 being maintained between them. For a number of reasons, there is increasing interest in shifting the formulations based on digestible Ca and digestible P. To enable this move, information is required of the requirements of digestible Ca and digestible P. A recent study at ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of feeding xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS), xylanase (XYL) and fermentable fibre, in the form of wheat bran (WB), on egg quality. It is theorised that WB stimulates and trains the microbiota in the hindgut to hydrolyse and ferment dietary xylan, and XOS and XYL may further upregulate xylan fermentation pathways, resulting in improved nutrient utilisatio ...

I. IntroductionNecrotic enteritis (NE), caused by Clostridium perfringens (CP) and exacerbated when birds are co-infected with Eimeria spp., is one of the most severe and common diseases resulting from intestinal mucosal damage (Bae et al., 2021). The stimbiotic (STB) concept has been recently introduced as a non-digestible and fermentable additive that stimulates the development of a microbiome c ...

1. IntroductionHumphry Davy, a British chemist, was the first to isolate and investigate the chemistry of calcium (Ca) and to recognise it as an essential component of bone in 1808. Ever since, it has been the subject of a voluminous amount of research in both human and animal nutrition. Today, the biological significance and economic importance of Ca in animals are intuitive. Calcium is the most ...

IntroductionThe application of exogenous enzymes in fibrous diets has been found to increase nutrient utilization and subsequently improve the growth performance of broilers [1, 2]. However, the response of different enzymes is not consistent, and it could vary based on the types of ingredients present in the diet. Among the exogenous enzymes, xylanase is commonly used to improve nonstarch polysac ...

IntroductionGlobally, industrial coproducts from the dry and wet milling of cereal grains are often included in swine diets to reduce feed cost; however, they contain greater levels of non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) than their parent grain (Jaworski et al., 2015). It has been well established that pigs lack the enzymes required to digest NSP, and that increased dietary NSP can reduce nutrient an ...

Soybean meal (SBM) and canola meal (CM) are two plant-based protein sources which contain reasonable amounts (2.9 and 6.8 g/kg, respectively) of calcium (Ca). Currently, no published values are available for the Ca digestibility in SBM and limited studies (Anwar et al., 2018; Moss et al., 2018) are available for the Ca digestibility in CM. Microbial phytases are now routinely added in poultry diet ...